Blueprint for 2020: A Plan to Strengthen the Future of Credit Union Initiative Report
1. Introduction: In the summer of 2007, National Credit Union Administration Vice Chairman Rodney E. Hood delivered an address during the Big Ten Credit Union Conference (BTCUC) held at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. During his speech, Mr. Hood invited those present to work together to increase student membership, employment, and participation in the credit union industry. Mr. Hood referred to his new initiative as the “Blueprint for 2020: A Plan to Strengthen the Future of Credit Unions.” Mr. Hood acknowledged that as the baby boomer generation begins to retire in the coming years, the composition of the financial services landscape will change significantly and there are few candidates from generations “x” and “y” waiting to assume roles in this arena. “While hedge funds and private equity are the careers du jour, America’s financial services providers will need dedicated professionals in marketing, operations, accounting, risk management, compliance, and sales in order to remain viable, sustainable, and competitive,” said Mr. Hood. The Vice Chairman indicated at this time his intent to convene an informal study group of college officials and credit union leaders to draft a framework that could be used to attract well-trained and highly competent new credit union employees, board members, supervisory committee members and credit committee members. That study group was formed and is comprised of the following volunteers: John W. Milazzo, Jr., Chair, President and CEO, Campus Federal Credit Union, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Tyrone Burke, President and CEO, Georgia State University Federal Credit Union, Atlanta, Georgia Phyllis Coleman-Mouton, Vice Chancellor, Baton Rouge Community College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana M. J. Coon, Senior Vice President and CFO, Ent Federal Credit Union, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Elizabeth Dooley, President and CEO, Educational Employees Credit Union, Fresno, California Mary D. Feduccia, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Students and Director, Career Services, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Lee Fogle, President and CEO, Duke University Federal Credit Union, Durham, North Carolina Rob Givens, President and CEO, Mazuma Credit Union, Kansas City, Missouri Mark Herbert, Chief Operations Officer, Oregon Community Credit Union, Eugene, Oregon David W. Kantar, President and CEO, Southland Savings Federal Credit Union, Buena Beach, California Ben Rogers, Filene Research Institute, Madison, Wisconsin
Mr. Hood charged the study group with developing a framework for credit unions that would: Foster credit union internships and mentoring opportunities for college students; Create strategic consulting projects for MBA students; i. Work with credit unions to perform management assessments of timely issues, such as membership growth, marketing campaign, product analysis, and membership segmentation Creating relationships with representatives from college career planning and placement offices to participate in career fairs; Creating symposia and curricula for students to receive academic credit while interning at credit unions; Providing low-income designated credit unions with contributions to pay for summer interns; and Cultivating new board members, supervisory committee, and credit committee members for the credit union system.
The success of this initiative, according to Mr. Hood, could be measured in terms of: Increased percentage of career fairs that involve credit unions; Rise in number of interns within the credit union system; Membership growth among Gen “X” and “Y”; and
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New employees with core competencies for the future financial services landscape.
2. Executive Summary: Credit unions of all sizes, fields of membership and charter types can benefit in their recruitment activities by partnering with local institutions of higher education and with agencies of local and state government. It was found that a number of networking opportunities already exist in many communities for business to partner with education and governmental agencies to find and develop recruiting opportunities. Some of the more successful recruiting programs are formal in structure, have a reporting accountability within the credit union and work closely with community contacts. Career services departments of high schools, community colleges and universities offer a wide range of recruitment services, usually at no or little cost. All are anxious to partner with industry to give their students employment opportunities. Local and state governments are likewise anxious to partner with employers in their locales to offer opportunities for workers entering the work force and for those displaced due to economic downturns and other reasons. Many will provide resources to match candidates with opportunities at no cost. Successful credit unions utilize formal intern programs in areas such as Marketing, Information Technology, Internal Audit and the like, for students while in school and during semester breaks. These interns learn valuable skills and provide a resource for permanent employment postgraduation. Successful credit union recruiters also tend to have an on-campus presence to promote themselves and are active sponsors of student organizations. They make themselves known to campus leaders; i.e., administrators, faculty, staff and students. A further, more complete, explanation of those practices can be found below. 3. Methodology: The study group met via telephone and internet to discuss their charge and how best to accomplish Vice Chair Hood’s expectations. Input came from each member’s experiences and what is presented is a collaboration of that input. While it is recognized that this study is not all inclusive, it will serve to give its readers valuable insight to actual techniques that have been used with success. It is hoped that this study might become a “living” document in that additional experiences could be added and shared as such a need arises.
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4. Findings: The study group met on several occasions for the purpose of pooling best practices and personal experiences into a document that would fulfill Vice Chairman Hood’s vision for a template that could be used by others in the credit union industry. What follows is a summary of those best practices. Credit unions desiring to attract youth to the employment opportunities they offer would be well served to formalize their efforts in a comprehensive recruiting plan. Those credit unions that developed and implemented such plans were generally ones that identified their own staff needs and understood student demographics, minority distribution, enrollment/degree trends and millennial characteristics of the work force from which it drew. Also important to success was the appointing of a person, usually someone in their Human Resources areas, the accountability of the program. This person can monitor the credit union’s employment needs and becomes the conduit between the credit union and recruitment sources inside and outside its community. Credit unions of all charter types would be well served to establish strong relationships with secondary and post-secondary institutions of learning within their trade areas. These would include high schools, colleges and universities. All have counseling services, especially the latter two, who normally offer career services to assist students in preparing for and finding employment during school and post graduation. Most offer on-campus recruitment, job vacancy posting and resume referral services. Louisiana State University’s Baton Rouge Campus offers the TigerTRAK service through its Office of Career Services. It is an online source for job postings and on-campus interviewing opportunities and is available to LSU students, faculty, staff and registered alumni. This is a service made available through MonsterTRAK and is available to other universities throughout the United States. Currently, over 3,100 schools participate in this program. For information, please go to www.monstertrak.monster.com/employers and follow the instructions. Many offer services where student databases can be searched for candidates to match credit union job qualifications and then email the resumes of potential candidates to the credit union. Many also assist credit unions in evaluating their recruitment results and help refine efforts for greater success. In Louisiana, the State has launched a web-based educational and workforce initiative to cover over 1,000 public and private schools called LA ePortal. Its goal is to create a workforce education and training pipeline that produces better prepared workers for Louisiana employers. Louisiana State Agencies, led by the Board of Regents, have collaborated to launch LA ePortal. It is a state-of-the-art online career, college and work planning
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solution for students; i.e., tomorrow’s labor force. Credit unions, as well as other potential employers, can partner with LA ePortal to promote their company, gain exposure, and create public awareness to over 400,000 students, their parents, educators and administrators in a streamlined, focused manner – 24/7/365. LaCap Federal Credit Union, headquartered in Baton Rouge, was one of the early participants in this venture. This initiative is spreading to other states through the efforts of Profiles International, LA ePortal’s developer. Credit unions that participate can use this tool to facilitate their recruiting efforts while partnering with private and public schools, community and technical schools, colleges and universities, as well as Out of School Youth and Career Solution Centers. For additional information, visit www.laeportal.com. One of the most frequently used recruitment tools utilized by credit unions is that of formal intern programs. These can be either summer internships or those that are conducted during the school year or semester. They are coordinated with academic programs leading to degree programs or core study programs. In high schools, this could be a Distributive Education or a COE program. In college, it would be a program designed to follow a specific degree tract; i.e., Marketing, IT, Internal Audit, etc. Ent Federal Credit Union, Colorado Springs, is an excellent example of a credit union that utilizes internships in conjunction with the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and INROADS. INROADS is an international program that works to develop and place talented minority youth in business and industry and prepare them for corporate and community leadership. More can be learned about INROADS by visiting www.inroads.org. Ent FCU currently offers four internship opportunities; a Consumer Lending Internship through INROADS, and a Member Service Representative Internship, a Librarian Internship and Marketing Assistant Internship through the University of Colorado. A fifth internship opportunity is being considered for a student to work with The Colorado Pioneers Museum to archive digitally stored credit union documents related to the credit union’s 50 year history. Even smaller credit unions with fewer resources can take advantage of a university relationship in an informal way to recruit staff and volunteers. Duke University Federal Credit Union has become known to the Duke MBA program because of the efforts of a former Board Chairman. While enrolled in the Graduate program, he recruited one of his fellow students to become a credit union staff member. That student is now a Duke MBA and is the credit union's COO. Since that time, Duke University FCU has recruited two board members and one staff member out of Duke’s MBA program as a result of these contacts.
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To keep this valuable exposure for the credit union at the Business School, the COO now attends career nights for upcoming MBA graduates. In addition, the credit union has offered an informal internship program, and has worked with the Business School on strategic studies for the credit union. Other credit unions, such as Campus Federal Credit Union, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, have used interns with great success. Campus Federal has partnered with LSU to offer internships in Internal Audit and Marketing. The credit union has also worked with professors and Masters of Business Administration students in LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business Administration. The credit union has been able through this collaboration to utilize students in studies that have been beneficial to the credit union. Likewise, the credit union has participated with students on many of their projects related to their course studies required for graduation. This partnership has resulted in a wonderful networking opportunity. These programs offer a win-win situation for educational institutions, credit unions and students. For the student they address the Catch 22 situation of not being able to find a job because of not having experience. In addition, they give the student the opportunity to practice hands-on what they are learning in the classroom. Intern programs also provide the student with the opportunity to work at a job in which he or she has an interest in pursuing, but might not be all that certain about. The program provides experience, the aforementioned networking opportunities, a foot in the door upon graduation and, in some cases, a paycheck. For the educational institution, the program provides a partnering opportunity with the business community that could produce a gateway for future recruitment and hiring opportunities. And, for the credit union, intern programs provide for a valuable source of recruits that are eager to learn and to contribute while they are working their way through school. The credit union gains the opportunity to determine whether the student worker meets their standards for post-graduation employment, and if they do, will have a trained and tested employee to join their ranks. An innovative approach aimed at entry level employees involves credit unions, other financial institutions and retail organizations partnering with local community colleges to provide generic training for students interested in jobs that have a similar skill sets, such as Paying and Receiving. It is recognized that in a retail atmosphere, certain skills such as cash handling, are not specific to one industry. By having these skills taught by the community college in partnership with local businesses, a pool of trained and employable recruits is developed for the community. This approach assures employers that they have a steady stream of qualified applicants from which to choose. It gives the community colleges a needed curriculum to teach and the students benefit by being taught the basic skills necessary to begin
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contributing more quickly in the workforce resulting in higher starting salaries and quicker advancement opportunities. For credit unions that do not have existing contacts at targeted institutions of higher learning, they are encouraged to contact those institution’s career centers and to use energetic job descriptions to highlight intern and employment opportunities. Both graduate and undergraduate students know that any new job, especially an entry-level one, entails a lot of work, so instead of just describing responsibilities, highlight differentiators and opportunities. Some common credit union differentiators to highlight in job descriptions include: Socially responsible employer. Opportunities to work with senior managers from Day One. Travel for job - job-related training. Opportunity – Opportunities to influence strategy immediately (this tactic is especially appealing for MBA recruits). Reasonable hours allow for good work/life balance. Education reimbursement (for full-time hires). Also useful are job descriptions that highlight specific skills a new hire will gain. For Finance employees, this might include learning to run assetliability scenarios or enterprise budgeting. For Marketing employees, it could mean in-depth market research or running a direct mail campaign. An interesting approach that successful credit union recruiters use is mentoring students by joining schools’ online mentoring systems that allow students to connect with professionals for advice about occupations, employment and graduate/professional schools. Involvement ranges from responding to occasional e-mails to allowing students to job shadow during a business day. At LSU, this program is called the Tiger Network. Additional information can be found at www.lsu.edu/career/employers. The promotion of the credit union on the campuses from which they drew candidates was also found to be of importance. The more familiar the university faculty, staff and students were with the credit union, the more creditability the credit union had and the easier it was to attract candidates. It was also found that having a consistent, strong credit union presence on campus year-round enhanced the credit union’s image and the confidence of the campus community in the credit union as a desirable place to not only work, but to seek needed financial services. Attendance in on-campus Career Expos and job fairs have helped to showcase credit unions and the career opportunities they make available. Many institutions of higher education offer credit unions the opportunity to sponsor presentations and receptions to informally meet with students and share literature about their organizations prior to on-campus interviews. This has been found to be an
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excellent ice breaker and help make candidates more familiar with credit unions and what they do. Another way for credit unions to promote themselves on campuses is to sponsor student organizations and activities. One such opportunity is used by Mazuma Credit Union, Kansas City, Missouri. An organization the credit union works with is the University of Missouri-Kansas City chapter of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE). SIFE is a global non-profit organization active in more than 40 countries. It works in partnership with business and higher education to establish student teams on university campuses. Its teams work with faculty advisors and they are challenged to develop community outreach projects. They work to leverage personal experiences, the expertise of their faculty advisors, the support of their local business advisory boards, and the resources of their institutions to implement programs that create real economic opportunities for members of their communities. SIFE also offers an intern program. Additional information may be obtained at www.sife.org. One low-budget, high-impact way to gain exposure to talented MBA students is to partner with Net Impact, a not-for-profit business association with more than 60 chapters nationwide. The program is organized in chapters at top business schools and in several cities. Net Impact students actively volunteer for Service Corps, where they engage in short-term, part-time consulting projects relating to marketing, business planning and operations, and strategic planning for non-profit organizations. At the very least, participating credit unions receive free advice from a professional team. More importantly, however, credit unions can present themselves as a viable potential employer for MBA students already predisposed to socially responsible business. Find more information about Net Impact at www.netimpact.org. Successful credit unions advertise in job search handbooks and on on-line websites sponsored by college and university career services offices. They also reach candidates through student publications, student newspapers, bulletin boards, university websites, bus signage, bench and bill board/score board advertisements. Many also utilize student radio and television broadcasts. Credit unions have also established relationships with academic departments and student organizations to announce job and interview opportunities. In many cases, these networks work in reverse to allow faculty and staff to recommend outstanding candidates for employment at credit unions. An interesting additional benefit of these partnerships has been that many faculty and staff members interested in summer break employment, a career change or post retirement employment have found credit unions as places to fulfill their employment needs.
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Still another strategy utilized by credit unions and other employers is partnering with state and local agencies to encourage the advancement of young adults through apprenticeship, occupational training and technology. One such partnership is sponsored by The City of Baton Rouge and its Business and Career Solution Center. Through the activities of The Baton Rouge Career Solution Center Youth Program, youth and adults receive vocational training in a number of disciplines to include business services. Another program offered by The City of Baton Rouge is The Baton Rouge Workforce Investment Board (BRWIB). It provides a local link between job seekers and employers. The BRWIB offers a variety of resources to help job seekers find work, plan a career, and receive training. Employers rely on The BRWIB to screen and test job applicants, provide training, obtain research, and perform out-placement services. These programs offer an excellent opportunity for credit unions to contribute to their communities and recruit entry level staff members. Additional information on these programs can be found by visiting www.brgov.com. The study concludes with the finding that there are a number of opportunities awaiting credit unions that choose to partner with their local institutions of higher learning. Whether to find needed staff or to build relationships and business, these partnerships serve a useful and worthwhile purpose. Credit unions are encouraged to tap into these networks to fulfill their needs and to enrich their communities. 5. Conclusions: Conclusive evidence suggests that opportunities exist for credit unions to increase student membership, employment and participation in their organizations. Nearly all the options have one thread running through them…a partnership between the credit union and institutions of secondary and/or post-secondary learning. If credit unions want to be successful in attracting the attention of young people, they would be well advised to network with the career services counselors of their local high schools, colleges and universities. Also important were it use of resources made available from non-profit organizations and the use of websites dedicated to assist employers and potential employees alike. 6. Closing: The members of this study group would be remiss if they did not thank Vice Chairman Rodney Hood for his inspiration and leadership during this endeavor. It was his original concept and vision that made this study a reality. We thank Mr. Hood for his confidence in the study group’s abilities and for banding us together through this charge.
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We sincerely hope that this document serves to inspire other credit unions to follow the lead of those who already utilize the techniques herein described. These best practices are easily replicated, as is the success already experienced by those early to adopt them.
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